Among the Nations
I know we’re just past the season where we have to repent our sins, but I just finished reading the incomparable Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt. I loved it, and in solidarity with all of the excellent essayists therein, I thought I’d confess to something that often causes me to grapple with my own guilt.
I live with non-Jewish roommates. I am dating a non-Jew. I live in a decidedly non-Jewish neighborhood (for that, at least, I think we can blame economics). A solid chunk of my closest friends are—surprise!—not Jewish. During my last year of college, one of my housemates actually said to me, “You know, for someone who does Jewish stuff as much as you, you don’t really hang out with, you know, Jews too much, do you?” In the tightly interwoven Jewish community, I am a thread that frequently wanders away on her own.
I’m not one hundred percent sure how this trend of living so thoroughly among the nations got started, although from time to time I idly form theories. (I’ve pretty much narrowed it down to too much PBS as a young child, or the fact that I failed to thrive at a sort-of-Jewish sleep-away camp—an experience that I think consisted mostly of hiking by myself while wealthy girls from Long Island blew-dry their hair and mocked me). I’d like to blame it on my innate curiosity and love of diversity. Possibly it’s that I am not quite the Jew I think I should be—so who am I to differentiate or judge? Most likely, I am sure, is the thing that people have been telling me my whole life: I am one stubborn pain-in-the-butt. I fell into good friendships with people who I liked because they were and are kindhearted, well-intentioned, brilliant, hysterically funny or some combination thereof.
I have been mightily blessed with quite an impressive assemblage of Jewish women who have acted, over the course of several years, as friends, mentors and guides. Without them I’d doubtlessly be lost. Their guidance, however, has not necessarily erased the twinge of loneliness as I explain for the seven-hundredth time that no, I’m not making a nice dinner and lighting candles to be romantic—it’s Shabbat! Shabbat? It means, like, “the Sabbath.” Yes, another Jew thing. Yes, I do seem to do them a lot.
My Jewish identity experienced a renaissance after my freshman year in college, and the obsession to learn more, learn deeper only burns brighter day after day. It has been, though, something of a solitary journey. I am acutely aware of the communalism of Jewish identity, but by and large that’s had something of an abstract feel for me. Now, post-college, things are starting to shift a little. My school, among the more liberal of the East coast hippie hangouts, has as its motto “You are different; so are we.” The Lilith office is more about “Please pass the kugel—and by the way, what are your plans for the hag coming up?” I am enjoying this new experience, but I don’t regret my earlier ones. Being a little lonely in my initial post-Jewish-identity-crisis stage gave me space to reason things out on my own, to formulate and marinate in the idea of what kind of a Jew I wanted to be.
And it taught me something about those non-Jewish friends—whose indelible place in my life puzzles many people. I have a whole cadre of chaverim who are fluent in what we dubbed JewSpeak, which is, to them, a totally foreign tongue. It is possible that you have not lived until you have heard “Gut Shabbos!” out of the mouth of a Lutheran, Norwegian-stock Minnesotan. My Jewish community welcomed my fervor with knowing smiles and open arms, and my GoyAllies ™ happily listened to me ramble, breathless with excitement, even when they had no idea what I was talking about. That’s love, right there, and at times it obliterates any strangeness or guilt I may feel when I’m the only Jew in the room not to know the name, age, marital status and social security number of every other Jew in a five-mile radius.
I can see myself being pulled slowly into the vortex of Jewish community as life progresses from here, can see myself being woven ever more intricately into the delicate pattern of this huge, beautiful, messy tapestry. But I doubt I’ll ever unravel these earlier ties completely. I learned just recently that the commandment to be l’or goyim isn’t just translated as “a light to the nations”—it can also be read as “a light among the nations”.
Makes sense to me.
–Mel Weiss,
Lilith’s Assistant Editor
4 comments on “Among the Nations”
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Lucky you! You have choices. I converted (Conserative) several years ago. But I am poor (too poor to join a shul. I but attend regularly, just not the HHD)and lesbian. If I had known how offensive all this would’ve been to my new “family” I might have been persuaded to just forget converting.
I’m sorry to hear you feel constrained and even a little sorry about your new situation. As a queer Jew myself, I understand that the Jewish world can feel unfriendly to those of us who don’t fit the heteronormative mold. If you’re interested in finding about queer Jew options, drop me an email at melanie@lilith.org and I’m happy to share everything I’ve found–there’s plenty of stuff out there, if you know where to look. Good luck!
–Mel.
So here I am in Northern Nevada–of all the lonely goyish places–having just read your post, and I’m almost moved to tears by how much I relate to your experiences. I’m sick of being the token Jew! I’m sick of explaining, like, “the Sabbath” to people who view my imperfect yet devoted Judaism as exemplary of an entire culture’s beliefs and practices. There are moments when I break down from all the loneliness and sob to my non-Jewish significant other of how I need to take an aliyah to the deli near my grandmother’s house in LA just to feel like less of a freak, and how dark curly hair is not fascinatingly different to everyone.
However, I do also get those moments of overwhelming love and support from my goyish friends. When I look around my Shabbat dinner parties to see so many different kinds of people, of different languages and skin shades and genders, all beaming warmly at me while complaining about the traditional sip of Manichewitz together, I realize that being the lone Jewish representative can be something beautiful too. Our traditions ARE a light to the nations sometimes, and the more nations the merrier. Thank you for reminding me of that.
So here I am in Northern Nevada–of all the lonely goyish places–having just read your post, and I’m almost moved to tears by how much I relate to your experiences.